Presenting SciberBrain to Teachers

On the 30th October, eleven secondary science teachers and five schools outreach personnel attended a two hour presentation which showcased the latest incarnation of SciberBrain as a DIY kit for teachers.

Attendees were introduced to the resources and invited to voice their initial impressions of the tasks, content, format and any concerns about workability in a school setting. Our group were really keen to express ideas and to help us to make our resources as useful to teachers as possible. We are really grateful to all participants for their illuminating and encouraging thoughts.

Teachers were given hard copies of all the workshop activities in a beautifully compiled pack (courtesy of our friends at Portland Press) which they can now try out with their classes. We hope to gather their experiences to inform the future developments of SciberBrain materials and to highlight areas where teachers would like further support.

Thanks are due to all attendees, Chris Kirk, Sheila Alink-Brunsdon, Hannah Baker, Kathryn Reese, Angela Smith, Brian Boyington, Paul Newman and the staff at RIBA.

The gateway to all the sciberBrain resources will eventually be via http://www.sciberbrain.org/ where practitioners will be able to find everything they need to run a workshop. A temporary mock-up is displayed currently for illustrative purposes only. We shall be working on this and other topics over the coming months.

SciberBrain at the BA Festival of Science

Seventy pupils from four Merseyside schools took part in the SciberBrain event in the 2008 festival yesterday. The event, which took place at the University of Liverpool, was well received by the teachers and their pupils who rose to the challenges posed throughout the day. The pupils were attentive, on task and happy to participate in all the activities presented. Improvements to the presentations and some alterations to the resources definitely enhanced the learning experience in terms of content pitch, visual appeal and pupil engagement.
Now I hope to compile an on-line teacher pack to enable others to present their own SciberBrain events in schools.
Thanks once again to Helen Watson of Southampton University and Hannah Baker for their unwavering dedication and support with this project.

SciberBrain is born!

Following the pilot of Sciberquest, it became clear that several aspects of the event needed to be tweaked. One of these aspects being the name! Some of the activities are being modified and the teachers guide is being prepared to enable schools to DIY their own event.

In September, SciberBrain is going to the BA festival as a slightly reduced 90 minute version where we hope to try out the newly designed presentations and some of the modified materials. We will have three slots in the programme so by the end we should have a really good idea of what works well.

I am also reviewing the literature to explore the current thinking on teaching socio-scientific controversial issues. I feel this is necessary to inform future developments in this project so I can back up and justify our methods to the teaching community. This went down well with the Science Learning Centre staff in York yesterday. They are very interested in showcasing SciberBrain in their 'How Science Works' courses which would be a fantastic endorsement.

Pilot of SCIBERQUEST, the 3 lesson challenge

On Friday 27th June, Hannah Baker and myself set out to trial the 3 lesson challenge on stem cells with a class of high achieving 13-14 year olds from Ringmer Community College in East Sussex.

Our aims for the day were to trial several activities and resources to find out which were the best for getting the information across to this age group. The information we gathered during the day will inform the further development of the materials that will be available for other such events as well as being hosted online for schools to DIY their own events.

The pupils were engaged with activities looking firstly at the at the science and later the ethics of embryonic stem cell research. The activities included presentations, video, a web quest, group discussions, cartoon drawing, card sorting and finally a debate. Some of the resources were completely home-made, others incorporated freely available materials from other providers. The event successfully pulled together all these great resources into a neat easy-to-access package.

The day's programme was extremely well received by the pupils and they all worked really hard at the challenges presented.
I attribute the success of the day to a number of factors that were in our favour, namely:

• Helen Watson, post grad biochemist (Southampton), member of the Society's education committee (and secret ex-head girl of Ringmer School) for coordinating the liaison between the society and the school, supporting the pupils during the activities and also for being our most attentive hostess throughout the day.
  
• Dr Elaine Allison, vice principal and science teacher at the school for her enthusiasm towards the project and for setting up the infrastructure within the school to make the day possible.
  
• Hannah Baker, the Society's education project manager for her checklists, enthusiasm and support on the day not to mention her truly amazing reprographical feat in the face of adversity
  
• Support of the school science department, IT staff and of the other staff members who allowed their students to be hijacked for the afternoon.
• Great timing (the final half term for year 9 is an excellent window of opportunity for extra curricular events)
• A good topic
• Plenty of good quality activities
  
• A superb bunch of pupils who were a credit to themselves and their school
  

A big THANK YOU to all involved!

Encouraging teachers to facilitate debates

To support the pupil activities, we are doing some teacher guidance sessions that will hopefully slot into the existing teacher CPD programme at the science learning centres.

These sessions will consist of:

• Eminent scientist working in a controversial area of science speaking about the science, their work and the ethical issues.
• Showcasing freely available, relevant and helpful resources for use with pupils
• Demonstrations of debating strategies: techniques and technicalities

To this end, I am looking for a bunch of engaging and willing scientists to cover the first part, preferably working (or with an interest) in stem cells initially (more topics will be covered as the supporting materials are produced).

I will eventually be looking to recruit a crack team of about 10 teachers/facilitators to be trained up to deliver the debating strategy element. The education team at the @Bristol science museum have expertise in this and are looking into running a 'train the trainers' event for us.

Pupils' event evolves

As part of this project I am preparing some resources for ~14 year olds to encourage them (and their teachers) to debate controversial science topics starting with the ethics of embryonic stem cell research.

This may be delivered as a morning event in school or over 3 lessons (probably at the end of year 9 when the curriculum pressures ease off).

The intended schedule will run as follows:

• Introduction
• Stem cells "the science" slide show
• Guided web quest of "the science"
• Web quest debrief
• Stem cells "the ethics" slide show
• Roleplay of perspectives
• Group based writing frame activity
• Class discussion/feedback session
• Video of "eminent" perspectives
• Warm-up activity
• Preparation for debate
• Debate
• X factor style Feedback

The BS education committee have been a great source of expertise to consult in the preparation of resources for this event

Helen Watson has found a suitable pilot school to trial the activities with on 27th June, Ed Wood, John Lackie and Robert Rowney have all been very generous in reviewing my draft materials and Ian Harvey has kindly shared his experiences and contacts for the debating element. Chris Willmott is helping with the film aspect and has some good contacts for me to explore.

Thanks to everyone for your help!

The project takes shape

The project has been evolving gradually throughout May with 3 main elements emerging:

• Resources
• Schools activities
• CPD

I am working on resources to deliver to pupils and teachers that aim to assist the teaching and learning of controversial topics in GCSE science. I am designing a 2 lesson programme for school pupils based around stem cells initially which involve a PowerPoint, web quest and some debating/discussion style activities. I am hoping to pilot these materials with some year 9 pupils before the holidays.

Last week I met with James Probert of the English Speaking Union and Tony Gilland of the Institute of Ideas to discuss how they stage debating projects with young people. James seemed keen to collaborate on a debating day event for schools where we provide the materials and possibly experts, they are working with other organisations in similar events.

Over the next 3 weeks, I have more meetings planned with the Deputy Director of the Science Learning Centre network, the Natural History Museum's Education Programme Developer, the Learning and Programmes Manager from At-Bristol and Frank Swain from http://www.senseaboutscience.org/

That's all for now.

The plan

Last week I met with the National Science Learning Centre in York as they are the experts in teacher's CPD. Hopefully we will be able to work with them in providing some really useful CPD sessions in their 9 regional centres throughout the land.

I hope to enlist the services of brilliant and charismatic scientists to talk to teachers about their research in contempory and controversial areas such as Stem Cell Research, GM Crops and Designer Babies.

I would also like to provide a workshop to give science teachers ideas and confidence in debating ethical and moral issues that are thrown up as a result of scientific advances. I hope to meet with some experts in debating next week!

Watch this space....

Introduction to the project

Hi, I am Jane.

I have recently started work at the Biochemical Society to work on schools outreach projects.

We were given some money from the Monsanto Fund to help with some of the planned projects for 2008 so I am trying to devise a master plan to spend the budget as wisely as possible.

The plan so far is to create a CPD session for teachers, a schools event and some supporting online materials.

More later.....